Russia in the early years of the coming century, at the end of a savage civil war. Newly arrived in Moscow, Inspector Constantine Vadim is assigned to investigate a series of horrifying murder by an elusive killer the people call the Monstrum.
But Constantine is neither professionally nor personally the ideal man for the task. He is a provincial policeman who has never investigated a homicide - and a fatal attraction to strong women threatens chaos in his personal life.
Yet he does not lack a certain kind of courage. Against all odds, he pursues his investigation as it carries him through Moscow's kaleidoscopic world of privilege and poverty, sex cults and sinister politics to a place where the evils of Russia's past and present meet.
